August 2019 – So Uncomfortably Numb

I was recently having a conversation with a friend who needs a little kick in the ass and the resounding theme was that change needed to be made and because the rest of the family doesn’t want to change, doesn’t need to change etc that she’s falling deeper into a hole. She hasn’t worn a bathing suit in a few years and just feel shitty about herself. That’s no way to live. I went a long time wearing the same damn jeans day after day.

I have another friend this week who said that she doesn’t have any self control. And I get it, she’s got two kids, a husband who won’t say no to eating out (she’s a horrible cook I am told lol) and drinks when possible. I lack a good self control this late in the game, I get it. I feel like Dory from Finding Nemo some days down the shore. I go down with a plan and two minutes after getting into the condo I am ready to rage and pouring myself a drink or five. But you don’t have to finish your kids chicken nuggets, and you can make better choices when eating out. Baby Steps. Long term goals. I don’t bring things into the house that I can’t eat. I can’t have 3 oreos. I need the full sleeve. I am not wired to stop eating things like that Did you know that 3 oreos is a serving? I just can’t stop at 3 so I have to have the self control to just not have them in the house and when I am out to not buy them. And FUCK now I want a big cup of milk and a sleeve of oreos. Shit I haven’t had milk in months. FUCK.

I have another friend who preps her food, and then her twig of a husband eats it on her cause he has been blessed with that metabolism I would kill for. Like when I buy low carb ice cream and Brett eats it. Like dude…. you’re a skinny bitch, go buy some Ben and Jerry’s cause I wish I could eat it myself. BAD!

Self control comes with practice. Teaching yourself to go from “I can’t have that to I don’t want that” is not easy. But that’s the key to success for some people.

Amber and I weren’t always on the same path. I started with walking every morning and just tracking calories and she didn’t track at first but was doing Beachbody workouts and walking on weekends with me when I needed to hit my little Nike Fuel band goals. I started going to bootcamps a few months later and she followed a week or so later. But it took a while to click food wise. We tried IIFYM, High Carb, Meal plans, High Calories, Advocare cleanse, Low calories, carb cycling. I am tired just thinking about all the bullshit I tried.

I have had a great support system out here. I put it all on the line. Some weeks 100 plus people read this and some weeks it’s 12. And that’s okay either way because I am still out here writing. If I say one thing that inspires you, pisses you off, makes you think, then my job here is done.

While I am thinking about it…..

Moms and dads, I beg you. GET HEALTHY FOR YOU. GET HEALTHY FOR YOUR KIDS. I am not blaming my parents for anything. I know I put the food in my mouth, I know I snuck all kinds of food for a long time and probably had a problem at one point, DON”T LET YOUR KIDS SPIRAL OUT OF CONTROL. Keep them active, be active with them. Be a good example for them. If you struggle, they will struggle too. The world was cruel to me in HS and college and with the internet now it’s even worse. I don’t want to tell you all the horrors that I went through, tears I cried. You might have to trust me here but you don’t want the chubby, fat, husky, big boned child. You hear will be broken. They will not have it easy. And they can be strong like I was but they will also be broken like me. I wish I could talk to 25 year old Franco and set him straight but he ate out every night. Never cooked and just lived an unhealthy lifestyle. I wish I could tell 12 year old Franco to walk more, run more and be more active. Get your kids involved in sports, if they don’t want to play, play pokemon go or that new Harry Potter game where they have to walk around, do it with them. SOMETHING ANYTHING. And don’t reward them with food and treats and ice cream and candy. Buy them a book. Take them to the zoo. Trust me.

I know, easy to preach it now. I am 48 years old. Still broken and only found my strength when I hit rock bottom. I don’t need any company in that hell. There is no running from your life. Do what you can to help your kids while you still have some control over it.

I was lucky. I had a wife who didn’t give up on me when I gave up on myself. She’d let me slip a little, feel sorry for myself for a day or two and that was it. Somehow she’d jedi mind trick me into snapping back into things and make it seem like it was my idea. I posted this on Facebook and Instagram for my transformation Tuesday post this week. She used to give me shit cause I’d never post anything about the two of us and now she probably is sick of me over the last few years.

But this is 1000% true. I was going to do this. These 5 years I drove the ship. 5 fucking years. Scary huh. But it was so much easier to do it as a team. Brandon fought it while he lived here, Brett is a pretty healthy brat so he kinda ate what we ate. The last year on Keto I don’t do sides very often and he loves his sides but we can make it work.
I am grateful for having a great support system, at home and out here on the inter webs. I am still here. The haters have gone quiet lately which is the greatest. Told you over 5 years ago not to bet against me.

Ugh okay I have really spun off the rails here today but let me reel it in. Having a great team helps. Sure. But you can only make change for yourself and you can do this no matter what. You can change whatever you need to, weight, job, life course…. you have the power. remember you made it though every tough moment before now and you can make it through this one too.

Power. I had to take some back myself this week. I looked at my weight loss chart over the weekend and after writing last week and my summer is kinda depressing. But I did say something in an early summer blog that I am usually playing catch up bad from the summer and then taking 1/2 the fall to bounce back and I did not want to do that this time. So I took back my power and wanted to get into ketosis and deep ketosis. If you don’t know what that means it’s when your body burns its fat for energy and not insulin (which your body produces from carbs.)

The cheapest and most keto friendly food are eggs. Two eggs have 1 carb in them. Yes eggs have carbs if you are paying attention. If it’s under 1 carb labels don’t have to print it so that’s why it’s always zero in MFP or LoseIt. Amber and I have done an egg fast for the last few days. If you follow me on IG you’ve seen all the Chaffles (Waffles made with eggs and cheese) and eggs in my story this week. Well fuck, Baba’s Birthday cake killed me Sunday 9 I had two pieces) night so I had to do something. Look for the photo about what the egg fast is on the left. It is very low carb so it kicks you into fat burning mode pretty quickly. And today finished my day three and I am down about 9 pounds. And 6 away from my pre-summer lowest weight ever. WOOP WOOP. Amber kick started her Ketosis again with 5 pounds during a 3 day egg fast. It’s probably water and sludge and that’s okay as long as little by little that plateau is broken. I am going to add a low carb, meal in for the next two days and eat eggs for the other two. This way I ween off of the egg fast and still make sure I am up there in my fat burning mode. Thank god I love eggs BUT after 3 days you start to cluck.

Okay I’ve jumped around in here like a maniac so I’ll shut off now. As always I am here if you need me.

Be strong. Be Kind. Put a fucking bathing suit and enjoy life.

Thanks for being my people.

Franco

You would think that being quiet for so long I’d have a lot to say and I guess I should but the truth is that I don’t. I don’t want to bitch about relationships and friendships and honestly I don’t want to beat myself up anymore.

I was talking to a friend who had the gastric sleeve operation. She’s in her early 20’s I believe and it saved her life as much as it changed her life and she’s been running and running and running and she’s frustrated because she’s stalled out this summer. She’s done marathons, she’s found the love of her life and she’s made so many amazing changes in her life that take just more than having a surgery. They take heart. I had advice for her. BE MORE KIND TO YOURSELF. Get back to your plan and stop beating yoursef up and be more kind to yourself. That’s really where self care comes in. It’s not really the pedicure and massage. You deserve those things no matter what I think. Being kind to youself. Not letting the voices in your hear beat you down. Those are the hard things. Those are the things that can really side track you or push you into dark places. Of course she said I was right and then later that night I was driving to the shore in Violet on top the the world and happy and found myself having a conversation with my wife that really lead me to think that I need to shut the fuck up and follow my own advice.

Yeah I was driving my dream car to my happy place and beating myself up as I found myself rubbing and playing with the loose skin on my legs. Something that I can’t control. So many things that happen to me I can control and I can change if I want and it’s the things that I can’t control that ruin me most times. They make me angry and they change me. And I have to follow my own advice because the reason that I give it is because it’s damn good advice. It’s also the hardest advice to follow.

Summer has been good for me. I can’t and should not complain. Not everything works out the way I want to but I have had fun times with family, and I’ve had fun times with friends and I’ve gotten to the shore. I started May in Florida and will end my summer run at Halloween Horror Nights in Florida too. I went into the summer at my lightest weight ever and have playing in the 10-12 pound range above that ALL SUMMER LONG because well you know ALCOHOL! And then that leads to stupid decisions. It doesn’t help that I’ve found the most amazing place for pint sized Orange Crushes. Glad I didn’t find that 6 years ago or I would still be 400 pounds. AY CARAMBA!

Guess what I know what how to bust the plateau. I know how I’ve done it before and I am not ready to do that yet. I m not strong enough right now. I will do my best to slim down a little more before we head to Florida because I have heard that the Hagrid ride is not very fat friendly and although I am not fat or at least I don’t feel that way anymore when most of your husbands and I have similar waist sizes and christ I am close to my kids sizes….. Amber has a nightmare on her hands with our laundry cause Brett and I are both larges in most things now. 😊 I find that hysterical and awesome and it’s a great non-scale victory and I don’t think she’s very amused by it. Lol.

But in the end I am a giant sized man to most people and being 6’2 or so still doesn’t make every chair or ride super comfortable.

Speaking of rides – 6 years ago I had my God Daughter and her brother in Wildwood for a few days and I went to get on the Great White with them which is a wooden roller coaster in Wildwood and I could not fit. I had to jump off and try not to feel bad as the kids went without me. Last week not only did we go on it, but we also jumped right back into the helicopter and saw Wildwood from the sky. It was amazing. It was so awesome to not have any fear of fitting in either thing anymore. I actually was panicking a little and wished I didn’t fit in the damn roller coaster but hey I was so glad I did it.

But that’s kinda how summer has been for me. Every day it’s another weird NSV as I beat myself up inside. Silly things like smaller underwear to nicer clothes to playing with the loose skin while I am driving and fighting back the tears. And honestly it’s not just about the surgery getting refused for the 3rd and final time….. I THINK my legs would feel better without the skin there but I know the surgery would not be fun and actually quite scary and not easy to recover from. I would have to disappear for awhile which honestly interests me the most out of the whole scenario. Maybe it’s time.

767 days left and I am not sure that I can make it quite honestly. But I’ll keep trying.

But I am still getting at least 3 – 4 gym workouts in a week. Some days I barley get 10K steps and some days I am crushing 20K and I don’t know if that helps or not. I think I need a basic reset and I just have to wrap my head around a 3 or 4 day fast. My head isn’t there right now. It’s filled with orange crushes and bologna.

I told my coach… which at this point is more of a mentor because I’ve been on my own with this for almost a year… that I wanted to hit the fat guy goal of ONDERLAND. Seeing 199 on the scale…. he told me that I was crazy…. and that my goal, build and height should 235. I was only 10 off from that at the beginning of the summer so I am going to set that as my goal for the rest of the year and work towards that while packing on some more muscle too come September. The goal from not until I get back from Florida is going to be to control myself a little more, reel the summer in and just be more kind to myself.

I celebrated a year at my new job this week. I’ll have to drink to that tonight when I get to the shore 🙂

Well I hope that caught you up. If you have any questions just ask. I am always ready for a dialogue.

Be more kind.

Franco